Many Allies of U.S. Share Pain of Afghan War’s Toll

The New York Times, 16 September 2009

Publié le :
16 septembre 2009

Judy Dempsey and Ian Austen

"BERLIN For most Germans, it was a rare even shocking scene. There, on television, were coffins holding the bodies of three soldiers, all in their early 20s, all killed in Afghanistan, all draped with the national flag.

"The soldiers, Martin Brunn, 23; Oleg Meiling, 21; and Alexander Schleiernick, 23, were memorialized July 2 at a service in Bad Salzungen, in the eastern state of Thuringia, where their armored infantry battalion has its headquarters. The three were killed in the Kunduz region, where most of Germany's 4,000 troops are based, bringing to nearly three dozen the number of German soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

For many Germans, the most recent deaths again underscored their discomfort with the deployment in Afghanistan, where they had expected troops that were focusing on peacekeeping and reconstruction to be mostly safe."